Fed&#39;s Fisher Says Clarifying Guidance With Numbers Would Be Hard Bloomberg Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher said it would be difficult to provide more clarity to investors on the Fed&#39;s policy intentions with more quantitative guidance. "We need to signal to the markets a little more clearly" and "I think it&#39;s hard to&nbsp; ...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The Federal Reserve may have to slow down the pace of its exit from its asset purchase program, extending it into 2015, said James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, on Friday, according to a Dow Jones Newswires. Bullard told reporters that recent soft economic data is pushing him to reconsider ending the asset-purchase program later this year. Most economists think the Fed is on course to steadily reduce the pace of asset purchases by a pace of $10 billion per meeting, which means the program could end by December. Bullard said the Fed hadn't set a hard and fast calendar date for the end of asset purchases, but was flexible based on the economic outlook. According to the minutes of the last Fed policy meeting in late January, only a few Fed officials were concerned enough about the soft data to raise the possibility of pausing from the steady taper pace. Bullard said he had advocated ending the asset purchases this year at the January meeting. He is not a voting member of the Fed's policy committee this year.

Existing home sales slid 5.1% in January from December to the lowest level in over a year. Nasty weather, rising interest rates and prices and signs of softness in the economy were all blamed. Big question is how prices will respond. The next S&#38;P/Case-Shiller Home Price release is Tuesday morning February 25th at 9 AM. [&#8230;]

(Reuters) - Ally Financial Inc is hoping for an initial public offering of as much as $4.5 billion next month, sources familiar with the matter said, in a deal that would allow the U.S. government to make a profit on its crisis-era bailout of the auto lender.

Bernanke Saw Fed Tools Unable to Stabilize Economy in March &#39;08 Bloomberg Ben S. Bernanke said in March 2008 that the Federal Reserve&#39;s monetary-policy tools might not be sufficient to stabilize the economy. "I think we are getting to the point where the Federal Reserve&#39;s tools, both its liquidity tools and its interest rate tools, are not&nbsp; ...

Fed Taper Question Keeps US Corporate Bond Sales Below Average Bloomberg Corporate bond sales in the U.S. held below the average of the past year for a second week as issuers waited for signals in the Federal Reserve&#39;s meeting minutes on the pace of stimulus reduction. Novartis AG (NVS) and Comcast Corp. (CMCSA), the&nbsp; ...

Yellen Saw Economy at &#39;Brink of Recession&#39; in January 2008 Bloomberg Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) --Janet Yellen saw the U.S. economy "at, if not beyond, the brink of recession" in January 2008, according to transcripts of Federal Reserve policy meetings released today. Yellen, president of the San Francisco Fed at the time and now&nbsp; ... and more&nbsp;&raquo;

A string of weak data reports this week signalled that winter's frosty weather is taking a bite out of the economy, as gauges of manufacturing and housing recently dropped. Consumers, too, are feeling the burn, as heating costs spiked in January. Also in this Week in Charts, check out findings on how a higher minimum wage would affect families' earnings, and data showing that student debt is racing higher.

Fannie Mae on Friday reported an annual profit of $84 billion for 2013, a banner year in which strong home-price gains in housing markets across the U.S. powered the mortgage-finance giant to an astounding rebound.

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